I’ve been designing materials for the course ‘Respecting the Rights of Babies: Rights-based learning and care in the baby room’, which starts on Wednesday 22nd November at 11.30am. I thought it might be interesting to explain why I wanted to focus professional learning around rights in the baby room. Where did the motivation for this course come from?
As a researcher focused on what happens in the baby room of nurseries, I get to have lots of fascinating conversations with baby room educators. As a lecturer on an Early Childhood Studies degree, I also get to speak every day with my students, many of whom are based in the baby room. In all these conversations, I’m often struck by how we tend to speak about babies – as these cute, lovely beings completely dependent on us to have their needs met.
Baby room educators often say things like ‘I love working in the baby room – I love how the babies need us so much’ or ‘It’s hard work in the baby room because the babies can’t do anything themselves’. While I don’t want to invalidate these perspectives and experiences, I do want to throw out a question about how such thoughts position babies. We seem to be setting up babies as passive rather than active and maybe turning away from the many ways that they express and assert themselves day to day.
I wanted to put together a course that would explore a different way of thinking about babies, while still looking at the day-to-day concerns of the baby room (e.g. feeding and food, sleep, touch and affection, play and personal hygiene). I’m excited to explore with baby room educators what happens when we think about these concerns but with a focus on the self-determination and agency of babies.
How would mealtimes in the baby room look if we prioritised the babies’ right to express their views and feelings and to be seriously listened to? What would change about the way we carry out routine acts of care, such as giving a bottle or changing a nappy? How would conversations with parents be different if we focused on the rights of the baby as the number one priority?
I’m so excited to look at these questions together with a community of baby room educators. If you’re interested in the course, please do take a look – there are still a few places left and it isn’t too late to book.